HELP! I think I might own a club??

Hey guys..

So, I put together a mixed martial arts league (like the UFC kinda) and it's going really well, but after our first tournament last Sunday I realized I think I own a club now. I had a lot of people show up that weren't participating in the event, and I really hadn't prepared for it. They all had a great time, but I want to makes sure they have an even better time, and I want them to come back again and again. I have a few questions for you seasoned Club Owners out there.

- How do you get people to join your VIP group without badgering them too much?
- How often do you guys post your events (paid ad i mean)? every event?
- Can you recommend some good stage / club lights that I can use over top of the ring?
- Any other advice you can think of that applies would be great too.

Here's my Slurl if you want to check it out.

http://slurl.com/secondlife/Baku/86.069/250.156

thanks everyone.

- How do you get people to join your VIP group without badgering them too much?
- How often do you guys post your events (paid ad i mean)? every event?
- Can you recommend some good stage / club lights that I can use over top of the ring?
- Any other advice you can think of that applies would be great too.

OK TO GET THWEM TO JOIN VIP GROUP WITH OUT PISSING PEOPLE OFF. HAVE SOEM OEN EVRY NOW AND THEN SHOUT IF YOU WANT A VIP TAG ASK ME THAT WAY IF SOME OEN WANTS IT THEY CAN GET ONE. YOU CANT FORCE THEM ON PEOPL THEY HAVE TO WANT IT SO THEY CAN KNOW MORE ABOUT YOUR EVENTS.

CLUB LIGHTS GO TO VOODOO DESIGN THEY HAVE SOME NICE STUFF THERE

PAID ADDS DONT NEED TO REALLY DO JUST PLUG YOUR INFO INTO SL EVENTS AND DO IT A FEW WEEKS IN ADVANCE. THATS ALL YOU REALLY NEED TO DO.


ANY MORE QUESTIONS JUST SHOOT ME A NOTE CARD

Hi Royce,

I'm not in world to check out your place now but it sounds like a ton of fun! I am not a "seasoned club owner" myself - just the owner of a humble little cafe - but here are a few things I've noticed in the 2+ months that I've run my cafe.


I'm happy to say that my cafe's group has grown from nothing to 160 members in a little over two months! Beyond my wildest dreams, really. I achieved this in several ways. First, I have signs in several places in the cafe that visitors can touch to be added to the group. They are not automatic - the sign sends me an IM, and then I send a group invite to the visitor. Second, at every event, I ask - just once - if everyone is a member of the group who wants to be. That usually gets several people to ask for invitations. It's not badgering, just a helpful question that puts no one on the spot.

Third - and this is the most important - I have a scanner that keeps a log of all cafe visitors and I review that log every day. Whenever someone turns up in the visitor logs twice or more, I send them a personal IM thanking them for visiting along with an invitation to the group. That way I am not badgering everyone who visits, just those who have shown enough interest to come back a second time. And people really seem to appreciate this personal touch. I would say that 3/4 of the people I invite this way accept my group invitation. Of the remainder, some send an apologetic "I already have 25 groups" response. No one has ever responded negatively - not to me, anyhow.


I have never paid for an ad for my events. Events listings on SL are free, and I do use those. I also pay my 30L per week to have my cafe listed in search, and have filled the parcel title and description with relevant keywords so people can find me.

Having a regular event at a regular time is good for encouraging repeat visitors, so I recommend that you try to do this. It has been delightfully successful for me. The downside for me is that a lot of my members are in other parts of the world and cannot be there at my regular event time, so I also try to have spontaneous events at other times.

I use group notices and group IMs to announce these - group notices about 12 hours ahead of the event, and group IMs when it is starting or when I want to goose attendance during the event - but I try really hard not to overdo the group notices and announcements. Nobody likes group spam and the last thing I want is for my group members to mute my notices!


If you want to make money in donations - I am still working on optimizing this myself. I have understated tip bowls (that fit in with my decor) near the places in the cafe that people tend to congregate. I have them scripted to say "Thank you for your donation" in public chat - that way when someone donates, other members are reminded to donate, but the identity of the donor and the amount are not revealed to the public chat. I *never* ask for tips or donations but I *always* personally thank each and every donor, whether they give 5 lindens or 500.

You are in a great position in that you are doing something you enjoy and finding that other people enjoy it too. This is wonderful! There may come a time when you have to decide whether to adjust what you are doing in order to please your customer base. That's going to be a very personal decision. For me, the most important thing is to have fun, but having lots of people come by is part of the fun, and so I am willing to adjust my practices a little to help people have a better time.

I don't have any employees so I can't offer any advice about that aspect of club ownership. I may someday, in the future, so that I can offer regular events during the times I cannot be in world. But, I am not eager to do this - if I hire someone it would have to be someone I know well and who I can trust to share my vision of what the cafe is and should be.

Good luck!

My one and only suggestion would be NOT to give group members a tag that says VIP...its kinda lame and nooby looking.
Everyone does it and it severely lacks creativity.

Wow!

Thank you sooo much for this amazing response Madhu!! No wonder your cafe is doing so well...you're probably among the 10 nicest people in all of Second Life. lol I'm checking out your cafe tonight when I get home. The old one I frequented closed recently.

The scanner is a great idea. I wonder how it is for lag? The fights I promote require a low lag environment so the action is fast and fair. Placing the tip jars around the place is a great idea too, and I have been meaning to put up a "join us" sign as well. I had one in my weapons shop that was the exact kind you're talking about. Worked amazingly well.

I am in a similar situation to you where I don't like the idea of employees because once it starts to feel like work, the fun factor may go down. I don't want to be that stressed out owner shouting at her employees to get their butts into work, and stuff. Not why I started this up at all.

I'll surely check out Voodoo. Thanks for the advice Don.

THEN DONT YELL AT THEM

IN MY CLUB I DONT SET ANY ONE TO SPECIFIC TIMES AND DATES EXCEPT FOR DJS.

I TELL THEM IF YOU WANT TO MAKE MONEY BE HERE THATS IT THEY COME AND GO AS THEY PLEASE.


SO THATS ALL YOU HAVE TO DO JUST MAKE SURE IF YOU DO THAT YOU HAVE LIKE 20 PEOPLE SO THAT YOU SHOULD HAVE PEOPLE TO COME AND WORK

If You Plan To Do Fights At Times Your Not On Like 24 Hr Fight Club. Well Then Make A Note Card Send It To Employes Stating Times They On Sl So You Can See Who Might Be Able To Come And When And Just Hire Arund That


And If You Want To Have Fun And Dance Coem To My Club

Sim/tipton
Club Glo

Maybe Ill Cach You In World

lol..you're so right. This is one I'm struggling with actually. I'm trying to come up with a tag that best suits the theme of my league.

WHY NOT TRY (WHAT EVER YOUR LEAGES NAME) MEMBER

But isn't "member" just as generic as "VIP"? lol

The irony of this amuses me greatly.

FIGHTER
VIEWER
LOVER
WACHER
BLOOD LOVER
I LIKE (GROUP NAME)
CANT GET ENOUGH OF (GROUP NAME)
GOD I NEED MY (GROUP NAME) FIX


NEED MORE IDEAS

SHOUTER?

well glad to give you a laff

lol

Slasher fan
blood or glory
hacked and honed



get creative

you can always change it or create new ones

Hey Royce. What a great idea! I'll check it out, and probably join the group.

I can't help you as a fellow club owner, because I'm not, but I can tell you that as a customer, I hate unsolicited group invitations, and I get tired of the club host shouting "JOIN OUR VIP GROUP!!" Every couple minutes. I wish they would just shut up and quit spamming chat. I much prefer a club host that is engaged in the conversations, has a good sense of humor and is more interested in making sure that everyone is having fun than in trying to sell the group or squeeze tips out of people (I tip - sometimes a lot - stop trying to get me to do it every 30 seconds). Give your host the ability to hand out invites because if I want to join, that's who I'll ask.

I much prefer to have a few signs posted conspicously that I can touch to get a group invite. Make them obvious enough so I can find them easily in a crowd - sometimes people put them up and they're hidden.

as for events, I usually don't look too far in advance. Post the day of the event and that should be fine. I usually log on and check events for what's going on right then.

Good luck, and a MMA club is an awesome idea!

I agree with basically everything trout said...

Spamming about the group, donations, or anything like that is just annoying. WOn't make me not come back, but will make me view it as worse on my list, compared to some others perhaps.

Events.. well.. the only events I've been in I just happened to be there (Even won a couple somehow), or my friend the DJ invited me along. For events, get word out the day of, and especially right before, and you should be just fine. Again.. not too much spam in-club, but enough to make it known.

For the group boards (Click 4 Invite ones) I like them.. they work well, and if I don't see one I actually usually assume there isn't a group (Well..info but not click 4 invite works too, but not as well.).

More Stuff Im Getting Interested May Take Some Of This To My Won Club Heheheh

That's great!

Glad to find an MMA fan in here. My league is kind of designed to be more like PRIDE FC, or K-1. We fight in a ring, I try to make it a bit theatrical and dramatic. I boast a lot that our fighters are better then the other promotions fighters out there (which we kinda proved last Sunday lol). It's gonna be a lot of fun.

The group to join is Constrictor Combat, unless you want to fight, then it's RAGE: Sport Circuit.

Keep yelling and someone will punch you in the face, seeing that's what you are obviously after..............

I *am* a club owner, and I can tell you that once you start bringing in employees, you're going to (a) incur expenses on a daily basis that you weren't even aware existed, and (b) your "hobby" just became a full-time job.

I love my club, I love my staff, but there are days when I just wish I didn't have to be there. It costs me, for 3 DJs and 5 hosts, and a general manager (who has absolute authority when I'm not around), plus my club stream, roughly $35k a month. I'm fortunate...each and every one of those people does their job very well, and I'm grateful to have them.

When you start getting flakey employees...it's no longer fun at all.

Thanks for the kind words, Royce, I'm glad you found my comments helpful!

My group tag is simply "Madhu's Cafe." It's not very interesting but I've not come up with something cleverer. :/

One more comment about hospitality: since my goal is to make people feel welcome at my cafe, I spend a lot of time and energy greeting and chatting with people; I am both owner and host, and that sometimes means socializing with people who might not be my favorite people to have conversations with - and answering certain questions politely over and over again even though it irritates me and I sometimes long to be snarky.

Last night's event at my cafe was a massive success and I was exhausted afterwards; I spent about 4 hours chatting and greeting and smiling and hosting and it was just as tiring as doing all that work in real life. It was wonderful and fun but - let's just say I'm glad I don't have to do it again tonight!

Royce, since your place has the fights to provide focus, the kind of work you need to do during events may end up being a little different than it is at my place, which is basically a social hangout. With the fights there to watch and participate in, everyone will have something to do and you might not have to work hard to make sure everyone is comfortable and involved in the conversation. On the other hand, you may have to work harder at coordination, making sure people take their turns, stay out of the ring when it's not their turn, &c.

Yes. My first event went very well actually. I was most worried about lag, because as we all know, it can destroy your ability to move and well, it's kinda what you need to do while in the ring and trying not to get knocked out. My parcel performed very well, and other than a few spikes here and there, it was fluid and action packed.

During an event I am host, referee, announcer, and fight organizer. I'm pretty much busy from the moment it starts to the moment it ends. I might ask my dear friend if she would play host during the events. She is kind of my "partner" in everything I do, and she's a pretty social girl. The fights are the main attraction, and so yeah..everyone just kind of hunkers down and cams into the ring to watch.